Lead by Experimenting

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Lies, Status Quo @ Work

Why do people lie at work? There are several major situations in which people lie in employer-employee relationship or partnership: an employee is hiding the truth from the employer (about his actions or mistakes) for he wants to obtain several professional benefits or is afraid to lose his job, an employer is hiding the truth in front of an employee when the disclosure could harm people or property under its management, in partnership relations people tell partial truths, to keep the doors open if situation becomes unfavorable in a negociation. Everyone knows without honesty in labor relations there is no trust, if no trust there is no respect, if no respect you can’t build anything lasting. Continue Reading →

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Not too long ago, I believed managers were born and not made… Also, I believed leaders posses some kind of power, almost hypnotic, that make them capable of leading masses, a capability which is beyond capabilities that most people.

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How important is communication?

From a theoretical perspective, Communication Management seems to be one of the most easiest area of knowledge in project management. In reality it is the touchstone for most managers, even for those with experience. Why is communication so important? Because 90% of the work of a manager means: communication. Continue Reading →

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Why should we be better that we are?

Today, my wife showed me a inspirational movie. The idea behind was the power of example: a child see his colleague fallen and he helps him getting up, a boy sees the gesture, remains impressed and when he get the opportunity he helps a stranger, others see the gesture, remain impressed, and they, in turn, help others… finally, starting with initial gesture of the first child, a lot of people are helping others for free, unconditional, inspired by example. Brilliant! Continue Reading →

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EVM, KPIs for evaluation of staff, projects and company

In three of the startups I have worked, one of my responsabilities was to define performance KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the employees. As an experiment, I tried to see in what degree the Earned Value Management (SPI and CPI) parameters can be used to evaluate the performance of the employees and the projects. I started with a pilot project where I have collected a series of informations for each team/resources/feature. Continue Reading →

Summer thoughts

One day I received a very interesting job opportunity from a startup company. Everything sound interesting, job was a good match for me, so I accepted to sustain the interview. I was tested with all types of silly questions stolen from companies like Google and Apple (the biggest producers of interviews kind of “A beautiful mind”; I think you are familiar with most known interview questions like: “How Many golf balls fit in an airplane?”, “You have a 100 coins laying flat on a table, each with a head side and a tail side. 10 of them are heads up, 90 are tails up. You can’t feel, see or in any other way find out which side is up. Split the coins into two piles such that there are the same number of heads in each pile.“). Continue Reading →

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Brainstorming (or the Story of a Stormy Brain)

10:30 o’clock. Members of steering committee occupy silently the places in the meeting room. We open notebooks and prepare the pencils for the brainstorming session scheduled few days ago. CEO remind us the rules: “there are no bad or poor ideas, just ideas“. Continue Reading →

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When is About Business, the Logic Fails

Simon Sinek, the author of the book Start with Why?, using the concept (“Golden Circle“=“Why? How? What?”) explains the reason why some people have success and others don’t. In order to succeed in business, but also in private life, you need always to start with the question “Why?”: “Why we do what we do? Why do we exist as business? Why some people managed to change the world and we did not?” Continue Reading →

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Conflicts from a different perspective

Some studies say the main source of conflicts in companies are: organizational conflicts (when there is a discrepancy between actual and perceived values, needs and interests of individuals or groups of individuals), some studies says the economical conflicts (when companies lack the available resources) or conflicts about understanding the project objectives and scope are the most important (it may seem there is always an inconsistency between how a client, manager and employees understand the scope of work). All the source of conflicts mentioned above are equally important, however there is no unified opinion among experts regarding which is the key factor in conflicts. But for one thing I am certain: in all companies I worked before, regardless the type of conflict involved, the ugliest conflicts was due to improper communication. Continue Reading →